Monday, February 28, 2011

Weekend Update

What a fabulous weekend! It's funny how much more time I seem to have when I am disconnected from the world.  After Friday's storm, we lost our phone and Internet connection and it wasn't restored until about an hour ago.  We also had extremely limited cell phone service because apparently our house is situated in a black hole.  Who knew?  ;-)

Anyway, Friday was a relaxing night.  Monte and I stuck with tradition and made it a pizza night.  Layla joined us, but she ate homemade heart-shaped calzones with soy cheese and spinach and bacon pinwheels.  We were all very tired from an exceptionally long week, so we went to bed very early (9:30!) I don't know why I don't turn in early every night!

On Saturday, Layla and I met my parents and sister at Barnes and Nobles, where Layla went to story time and colored a picture, while I test-drove the Nook and got a free cup of coffee! When Monte got off of work, he took Layla shopping.  I got some housework done, read (The Winds of War by Herman Wouk) and went to Joann's Fabric.  In the evening, we went to our nephew Jordan's birthday party.  He's seven years old! When Monte and I first started dating, Jordan was only 11 months old.  It's been amazing to watch him grow up.  I love being an aunt to him and his brother, James, and my other nephew, Christian.   Layla is lucky to have these three wonderful boys for cousins!








On Sunday, we woke up early and went to breakfast at a diner.  We found two nearby estate sales, where we found some good deals.

We bought this end table for next to Monte's bed for only $20.

And I got these new photo albums for $3 each.  I was very excited to find these because I am in the process of putting ALL of my loose photos into albums.


We took Layla to the playground, but the ground was too wet, so we went home and pushed her on her backyard swing instead.  After lunch and a nap, we dropped off Layla at my parents' house and Monte and I caught a movie.  We went to see Unknown, which we both enjoyed.  Thanks guys for giving us some much needed alone time!

For dinner I made lemon chicken, garlic mashed potatoes and Asian-style vegetables. Yum! It was such a fun weekend.  I feel like we haven't been spending a lot of family together time lately, so this was just what I was craving.

Here is a random cute picture from a few weeks ago.  One of Layla's favorite things to do is to lead everyone in the room by their hand to our staircase.  She makes us sit down, and then she grabs a plastic circle (the rim of her toddler plate) and goes "Beep! Beep!"  She loves "driving" us around!



Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A Discussion of Gender

Yesterday afternoon, I just happened to catch the end of Oprah, which previewed Lisa Ling's new documentary "Our America", which airs on the OWN network on Tuesdays at 10/9c.   The short clip drew me in, so I watched the whole episode.  This week featured Transgendered individuals.  I was struck by six-and-a-half year old Hailey's story.  Hailey is an adorable little girl with dark eyes and dimpled cheeks who, for all intents and purposes, is male.  Hailey was born "Harry", yet knew from a very early age (toddlerhood, according to her parents) that she was a girl.  I need to commend Hailey's parents for their phenomenal, apparently effortless parenting of a child who doesn't fit into the societal norm.

The show was very well done, and it really got me thinking: What would I do if faced with the same life experience? And how much of a child's identity is based on what they see? Obviously, I am not the first person to ask this question.  Because of my educational background, I am all too familiar with the Nature vs. Nurture debate in the field of developmental psychology.  In fact, I did research on facets of this debate both as an undergraduate and graduate student.  However, now that Layla is moving from baby to little girl, along with the recent release of Peggy Orenstein's Cinderella Ate My Daughter, I have been much more aware of what kind of a role model I am to my daughter.

Not twelve hours after watching the show, Layla and I were getting ready to go out for the day.  We got dressed and I was putting on makeup.  If you have young children, you know how hard it is to get yourself ready and out the door in a timely fashion.  I usually try to give Layla something to occupy her for a few minutes while I brush my hair, get dressed etc.  Today, I gave her a few tightly closed items from my makeup bag.  As I was getting ready to leave my room, I noticed how quiet she was.  I peeked into Layla's room and this is what I saw:





Holy cow! Am I raising a beauty obsessed diva? Did I buy gender neutral toys and clothes for nothing? Should I throw away her dolls and stuffed animals and replace them with trucks and trains? Clearly not.  But I can't help but wonder if I am already placing my daughter in a neat little box (a pink, frilly box at that) marked GIRL. 

I would love to know what other people think about gender stereotypes.  How do we avoid the labeling of our kids? How does this extend beyond the issue of gender? And what are the long reaching effects not just on individuals, but on our children's entire generation? Leave me comments, please! I'd love to start a discussion.



 For more information on Lisa Ling's documentary: Our America
For more information on Peggy Orenstein's book: Cinderella Ate My Daughter

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

February

The first half of February is a blur, probably because we've only slept a total of a few dozen hours, thanks to Layla teething.  Here's a recap of what we've been up to:

Layla said bye-bye to her crib and got a Big Girl Bed! We are so proud of our big girl!


For her reward for sleeping in her bed for the first time, we had a tea party! Layla loves playing with my teapots, so she was thrilled when she got her own.



On Valentine's Day, Layla made pictures with sponge painted hearts.  Then we used a few of her pictures as our tablecloth.  For dinner, we made heart shaped whole wheat pizzas with soy cheese.  For dessert, we made Banana Berry smoothies (with spinach and peas....shhh!).  Can you tell my her smile that she liked it?




We made Daddy a card - I got this idea from Sprout Online.  It's the ASL sign for "I Love You"


After Layla went to sleep, Monte and I had dinner and some champagne.  A nice treat for a Monday night!


These are the beautiful roses that I got from my Valentine. 



And here's just a silly picture of Layla with her doll's clothes on her head.  


Hopefully, the tooth fairy will come and give Layla her teeth so we can all get some sleep!